The Great Physician Rehabilitation Foundation (GPRehab) is organizing a Conference to discuss the issue on the education of children with disabilities. Entitled “Educating Children with Disabilities: The Realities and Challenges”, this will be held on September 21-22, 2013, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Hotel Palwa, Locsin St., Dumaguete City.
Main Speakers are Dr. Ramir Uytico, the Division Superintendent of the Department of Education- Dumaguete Division; Dr. Grace Tampus, Resource SpEd Personnel, Lodi Unified School District, Lodi, Stockton, California, USA; Ms. Evita Ngo, SpEd teacher, University of Southern Philippines Foundation and working committee member of the Organization of Rehabilitation Agencies for Inclusion, Cebu City; Mrs. Teresita Ga, Special Education In-charge of the Department of Education-Region 7; Mr. Ignaas Demyttenaere, Executive Director of the Institute of Inclusive Education, St. Louis University, Baguio City; and Ms. Cristina A. Domocol, Principal 1, Kindergarten and SpEd Coordinator, Bais City Division. There will also be Case Presentations on Best Practices in SpEd and Inclusive Education, to be made by different general education and special education teachers as well as parents.
“This Conference is meant to be a venue for honest and open evaluation of all efforts towards educating children with disabilities,” explains Glicel Tamonang, the new Coordinator of GPRehab’s Inclusive Education Program. “As it is now, the education of children with disabilities is not adequately addressed despite the efforts of the Department of Education to strengthen its Special Education Program. We need to find ways by which these children can be included in achieving the goal of Education for All.”
The United Nations has estimated that persons with disabilities constitute about 10-15% of the world’s population. It is lower in the Philippines, with the Social Weather Station estimating that 7% of the total Philippine population has various forms of disabilities. Of this, 70% live in the rural areas. Unfortunately, only 1.98% of the total number of children with disabilities are in school.
“This conference, the first of its kind in the province of Negros Oriental, is an initiative towards looking at the challenges and realities of educating children with disabilities,” continues Ms. Tamonang. “It will also look at this issue from the Special Education and Inclusive Education perspectives, tackling the limitations of each approach as well as its best practices.”
Special Education refers to the education of persons who are gifted or talented, and those who have physical, mental, social or sensory impairment and cultural differences so as to require modification of the curricula, programs and special services and physical facilities to develop them to their maximum capacity. In the Philippines, Special Education classes are held in special classrooms or centers that only cater to children who have, and/or deemed to have, disabilities. Inclusive education, on the other hand, is an approach where all children regardless of their abilities, are taught together in one classroom.
Although the goal of all learners with disabilities is mainstreaming, that is placement in the regular classrooms, children with disabilities in most schools continue to receive their instructions in special classes/centers that are separate from those of the regular students. Thus, students who, by virtue of their special needs, require some modified instructions, but who live far away from these Special Centers, cannot complete their primary education because they are referred to them by teachers who hesitate, or even refuse, to admit them into the barangay elementary schools. In the same manner, most children who manifest some form of learning impairment, behavioural problems and, sometimes, physical limitations, but who manage to enter the regular school systems, oftentimes drop out, at times upon the advice of their teachers, because their needs are not met by these very teachers who, through no fault of theirs, lack training on accommodation strategies.
“With the universal thrust towards Education for All, there is a big need to, once and for all, come together and honestly discuss the issues, realities and difficulties in the education of these children. Failure to do so at this point will make us guilty of committing an injustice to the 98% of those with disabilities who are not in school because they are perceived to be ‘special’,” concludes Ms. Tamonang.
